Friday, August 05, 2005

Deadlines, deadlines…

It is August, A. is not working at all until September, so we have lots of nice family time… which we have immediately filled with a series of commitments and plans, all requiring extensive preparation.

So this week we have been designing T-shirts for us all to wear on tomorrow’s Brighton Pride parade. The theme is Heroes and Heroines, so we are all going as our own made up superheroes – Superhamster (spins in his wheel at the speed of light), Guinea Pig Girl (to the rescue!), and two Lesbian Supermums, complete with superpowers like a never ending supply of biscuits, 360 degree vision, etc. This was all great fun, but did require staying up till much too late last night ironing designs on t-shirts with transfer paper – much more difficult than you think, if you’ve never done it before.

We have also been taking delivery of lots of guinea pig related items – hutch, hay, food, etc in preparation for our new piggies arriving on Sunday. The two female ones they told us about were a bit too nervy to be placed with children, so we have been offered two long-haired brothers, whom the children have named Handkerchief and Bunny. They are very calm and mellow, so should be perfect. Tonight’s stay up till 1am job is to make corrugated plastic liners for the two floors of their hutch, which should make the cleaning easier.

Meanwhile, we continue to work slowly on hats for our neighbourhood parade and festival next weekend, and think vaguely about which bits of junk from our house we can sell on our stall there, and how we are going to get it all down the hill to our allotted pitch. I did have an idea to make and sell jam from the cherries that are ready to be picked from the tree in our garden, but I’ve no idea if we’ll have time to do that.

We have been doing other things too:

A lovely trip to the beach with our HE group

Lots of playing with local cousins, in various parks, at the swimming pool and at our house

Plenty of Discovery Kids

Smart new haircuts for me and Leo

A very pleasant visit to friends in a small Sussex village, including catching a fish in the stream, chasing the neighbour’s chickens back to their own garden, and an introduction to the delights of Lego Racers 2

Must get back to work now – more news and guinea pig photos to follow when they are settled in.